INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE INVESTMENTS ON CORPORATE PERFORMANCE-CASE STUDY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of customer knowledge and customer knowledge investment on the financial and non-financial performance of IT companies. System Dynamics approach was used to analyze the interactions. Using Vensim-PLE software the Flow Diagram was plotted and the model was built and simulated for a ten-year period. Different policies were analyzed using the model. The results of the analysis indicated that customer knowledge investment affects positively the company's performance. The results also showed that more knowledge investment will not increase financial strength, and in some cases, it will reduce the company's financial strength. According to the results, information technology companies can improve their performance only through an appropriate amount of investment on customer knowledge management.